


The cast of EGS do not go to a genuine 1970s disco

by mincerafter42



Category: El Goonish Shive
Genre: 2000s, 2090s, Fourth Wall, Gen, Minor Canonical Character(s), Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mincerafter42/pseuds/mincerafter42
Summary: Because El Goonish Shive takes place between 2000 and 2099, a time rift on December 31st 2099 causes the cast to be sent back to 2000. Matt and Rat, from Dan's junior high comic, attempt to take advantage of this by having Dan write more Matt and Rat stories.
Kudos: 2





	The cast of EGS do not go to a genuine 1970s disco

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction. Pretty neat, huh?  
> It's intended to be a fun romp with elements that are just briefly mentioned in the El Goonish Shive canon. If it's not, sorry about that.  
> [EGS takes place in 20XY (commentary)](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2003-03-19#news)  
> [Genuine 1970s disco (commentary)](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2011-07-14#news)  
> The notes at the end have some more info about stuff that's in the work.

"Tedd, what's up? Why aren't you partying?" asked Elliot. This was a reasonable thing to ask, because Elliot was talking to Tedd, and Tedd was not partying even though both of them were at the same New Year party, celebrating the end of 2099. Instead of partying, Tedd was worriedly writing on a piece of paper, because paper still exists in the future.  
"I'm worried about something," replied Tedd. Elliot had guessed this from the fact that Tedd was worriedly writing on a piece of paper.  
"Worried about what?"  
"About the fact that El Goonish Shive takes place in 20XY, where X is a number and Y is another, potentially different number."  
"And that it's nearly 2100?"  
"Exactly. I'm worried there'll be a time rift of some sort." Elliot glanced at Tedd's paper, which said "I'm worried there'll be a time rift of some sort" along with many time-rifty calculations, some of which were scribbled out.  
"Don't worry Tedd," Elliot comforted, "I'm sure we'll find a way through if there's a time rift of some sort."  
"Thanks," thanked Tedd, with a slight smile.  
"Would you like to think of a time rift plan right now to be more prepared?"  
"I'm not sure there's enough time left in the" -Tedd glanced at a clock on a nearby wall, because wall clocks still exist in the future- "30 seconds left in 2099. Let's just go to the TV with everyone else."  
There was in fact a TV in front of which everyone else was gathered. Who's everybody else? Why, of course I am being intentionally vague, so that I can introduce the characters there when it's convenient for me! I bet Susan's there though, because this is totally a widescreen TV with a combo DVD/VHS player, and that describes Susan's TV, in Susan's house. The TV, which still exists in the future, counted down the seconds until 2100.  
As the TV continued counting down, the air started getting all wiggly, which is not a normal thing, and probably indicates there's a time rift of some sort.  
"That's a time rift of some sort!" exclaimed Tedd, just before the TV reached the number 1 and the air was at its wiggliest. Then suddenly the air was not wiggly at all, and the TV displayed a guy sitting at a table holding some papers, because papers still exist in the past.  
"Happy new year 2000," said the guy calmly. Meanwhile, Tedd was quite the opposite of calm.  
"Actually, Elliot, now would be a great time to think of a time rift plan!" panicked Tedd.  
"Well," Elliot thought, out loud for the convenience of Tedd, "Dan was the one who made El Goonish Shive take place between 2000 and 2099, right?"  
"Yup!" Tedd nodded, while still panicking.  
"Maybe if we got Dan to retroactively say we could take place in 2100, the time rift would go away."  
"Gee, Elliot," Tedd explained, "that is a very good plan except for the fact that I don't know how to contact Dan! Do you?"  
"No," replied Elliot.  
"No," replied Susan, who is definitely there.  
"No," replied Dan, in an unknown location, answering the question "Are you going to stop wearing your backpack on only one shoulder?"  
"Maybe the demonic duck knows?" posed Sarah, who is totally here now and was from the beginning. "Hey, is that a demonic duck of some sort?"  
A small hall table with a telephone on top appeared in a location Sarah pointed to. From the telephone came the demonic duck's voice saying "Hello, you've reached the demonic duck's answering machine. I'm currently unavailable but will be back by January 4th, 2000. If you would like to leave a message, press 1." The telephone and hall table then vanished.  
"Thanks for trying, Sarah," Elliot attempted to say, but in the midst of saying so realized Sarah was no longer there. "Where'd Sarah go?"  
I, the narrator, and also the writer of fan fiction, know exactly where Sarah went, which was some place outside of the TV room so as to not waste the duck's distracting powers, unlike those other two times. However, Elliot and Tedd and Susan and an unnamed number of characters don't know that becasue they were distracted by the demonic duck's answering machine of some sort.  
"Elliot," stated Tedd calmly, "I've figured out how to contact Dan."  
"Great!" supported Elliot.  
"It's 2000, so Dan would be 16 years old, still going to high school. And we know what high school Dan went to! Na- sorry, Moperville North! We simply have to be at Moperville North this morning to find Dan!"  
16 is actually my age at the time of writing. Pretty neat, huh?  
"Er, Tedd," said Elliot, "that is a very good plan except for the fact that today is Saturday." Elliot pointed to a calendar on a nearby wall, because wall calendars still exist in the past.  
"Aw," said Tedd, disappointed.  
"Tedd," suggested Elliot, "let's try to make the most of this situation. Let's have two cool days in the year 2000 before we find Dan at Moperville North on Monday."  
"I suppose that could be neat," decided Tedd. "Susan, want to come explore the year 2000 with us?"  
"No, I want to clean my house after you all leave."  
"Fair enough, I'll leave now because it's rather late."  
Tedd proceeded to walk to the front door. "Elliot, I found Sarah!"  
Elliot didn't reply.  
"Elliot?" asked Tedd.  
Elliot was silently staring out a window. "Dude," Elliot said slowly, "where's my flying car?"  
"You don't have a flying car."  
I, the narrator, and fanfiction writer, predict that flying cars will still not exist in the future.

Susan was cleaning the house. Did you think I was going to skip to Elliot or Tedd or Sarah or somebody else the next morning? Well, we can try that first:  
Sarah was sleeping.  
Back to Susan!  
You may wonder why I'm so insistent on describing Susan cleaning the house. Well actually, I'm not, I was just going to describe Susan, who happens to be cleaning the house. Why yes, I am the writer who decided to write that Susan was cleaning the house. Why yes, my writing does have a certain level of unpredictability to it!  
After cleaning the house, Susan walked to the Moperville library, which totally exists and isn't something I just made up. I bet it has cool beanbag chairs.  
Susan sat in a cool beanbag chair, reading a book. What kind of book? Why, a book with a blank cover conveniently preventing the viewer from being able to tell what the book is about, of course! As Susan continued to read, there was a loud "Aha!" The "Aha!" came from the general direction of two individuals approaching Susan. One had neck-length brown hair and a green flannel jacket and the other had shorter brown hair and a blue denim jacket.  
"I thought we'd find you here!" exclaimed the flanneled individual.  
"Well, yeah, but you also thought that about a bunch of other places and you were wrong," pointed out the denimed individual.  
"Sorry, do I know you?" asked Susan. "You look vaguely familiar, did we go to the same high school?"  
"What?" exclaimed the denimed individual. "How are you unaware of us, Matt and Rat, the stars of Dan's junior high comic, which was also named 'Matt and Rat'?"  
"That's not important right now," retorted Rat (who is the one with the longer hair and the green flannel jacket). "What's important right now is the gloating!"  
"Gloating?" queried Susan.  
"That's right," continued Rat. "Dan is back in high school now, and therefore has no choice other than to write some new material for the Matt and Rat comic, instead of continuing El Goonish Shive!"  
"Nyeh!" gloated Matt and Rat at the same time.  
"That doesn't even make sense," said Susan, "and even if it did, we're going to find Dan on Monday to allow El Goonish Shive to take place in 2100."  
"Oh no you're not," retorted Rat, "we're going to be there to stop you!"  
"We are?" wondered Matt.  
"Of course we are!" yelled Rat. "If we don't, Dan's going to keep writing El Goonish Shive instead of writing Matt and Rat! Now that we know their plan, let's gloat at all the other El Goonish Shive characters too!"  
With that, Matt and Rat hurried out of the library. Their bad luck with searching would continue, as the only character they would find for the rest of that day was Phill from the gas station.  
And yes, there probably is a just-off-panel librarian who was about to ask Matt and Rat to be quieter right before they hurried out of the library.

Next day, on Sunday, Elliot and Tedd were exploring the year 2000. They were doing that yesterday too, but I didn't describe any of that because it wasn't relevant to my plot of Matt and Rat.  
"Hey, the video store is open today," Elliot commented, as the two walked past the video store. "Maybe today we can rent some VHS tapes." Elliot and Tedd walked into the video store.  
"Elliot! You're late!" said Susan, behind the register in the video store.  
"Susan? What are you doing here?" wondered Elliot.  
"I work here, of course, and so do you!"  
"Why weren't you here yesterday?"  
"Yesterday was my day off."  
"Oh," Elliot pondered. "Maybe I should have thought of this before I decided to explore the year 2000."  
"It's OK," Susan said, "there haven't been many customers today, and I'd be able to enter today as a day off for you as soon as the system stops saying it's 1900, which should be tomorrow afternoon. Well, enter January 2nd, 2100 as a day off for you."  
"Thanks," thanked Elliot.  
Now where has Tedd been during this whole exchange? Probably just-off-panel, picking some VHS tapes to rent. See, look, Tedd and Elliot are renting the tapes right now! How do you explain that happening if Tedd wasn't picking some tapes, hypothetical reader?  
5 minutes later, Matt and Rat burst into the store.  
"Aha! I knew we'd find you here!" Rat began to say, but in the midst of saying so realized Susan was the only person in the store. "You again! Why can't we find anybody else in the cast of El Goonish Shive?"  
"You missed Elliot and Tedd by five minutes," observed Susan.  
"Curses!" cursed Rat, because this is a family-friendly fanfiction and I'm not going to put any curse words in it. "I told you we shouldn't have stopped for ice cream!"  
"You're blaming me again?" complained Matt. "What about the fact that you ignored me when you said we should walk faster?"  
"Let's just catch up to Elliot and Tedd before they get away!" determined Rat. "Which way did they go?"  
"That way," said Susan, pointing boredly in the direction Elliot and Tedd had gone five minutes earlier.  
With that, Matt and Rat hurried out of the video rental store. Their bad luck with searching would continue, as they did not find Elliot and Tedd who were eating ice cream, nor any other characters for the rest of the day, except for the demonic duck's answering machine of some sort, which isn't even canonical, or a character.

"Tedd, wake up!" said Elliot.  
"Aaaah!" observed Tedd. "What are you doing in my house?"  
"You invited me here yesterday, remember?"  
"Oh yeah, I remember now."  
"Today's Monday, which means we can go to Moperville North to find Dan so we can get back to 2100!"  
"Yes! Finally!" Tedd bolted out of bed. Unfortunately, Tedd got tangled in some pesky blankets and fell on the floor. "I'm OK!" Tedd revealed. "What time is it?"  
"It's 7:30 A.M."  
"7:30 A.M.? Oh no! We're late!" Tedd hurried to untangle the pesky blankets and to continue a morning routine consisting of mundane things like brushing teeth. Once that was done, as quickly as possible, not unlike how I glossed over it just now, Tedd and Elliot got into Elliot's normal, non-flying car to drive to Moperville North.  
"Dan should be easy to find, right?" asked Elliot, driving.  
"Yeah, it's not every day you see a 16-year old squirrely human."  
Elliot parked the normal car near Moperville North. Tedd burst out and looked at the nearest clock, which was on Elliot's wrist.  
"We only have 5 minutes to find Dan before the school day starts!" Tedd exclaimed. "After that, we won't be allowed into the school!"  
I, the writer, in fact, go to school, and the schools I have been to need visitors to get a visitor's pass before entering the school. I once tried to visit my middle school (or "junior high" as these characters are calling it) and I couldn't because I needed to have planned that in advance. For this story I have arbitrarily decided that Moperville North requires a visitor's pass to be obtained four or more days in advance.  
Elliot and Tedd looked around the group of students mulling outside the school. They were surprised by a loud "Aha!"  
"I knew we'd find you here!" Rat continued, having been the one who yelled "Aha!" Rat, and Matt, approached Elliot and Tedd.  
"Sorry, do I know you?" asked Elliot. "You look vaguely familiar, did we go to the same high school?"  
"They're Matt and Rat," Tedd told Elliot, "the stars of Dan's junior high comic, which was also named 'Matt and Rat'. I met them while we were in high school."  
"That's right," Rat confirmed, "and we're here to stop you from talking to Dan!"  
"And to talk to Dan ourselves!" contributed Matt. "Where is Dan?"  
"Well, we were looking for Dan," Tedd said, "but we haven't succeeded yet."  
"Hey," said Elliot, pointing to a 16-year-old squirrely human, wearing a backpack on only one shoulder. "I found Dan!"  
The four hurried toward Dan. However, Matt and Rat were closer, and reached Dan first.  
"Dan!" exclaimed Matt. "Write new material for the Matt and Rat comic!"  
"No!" said Tedd, from a distance, getting closer. "Don't do that!"  
Dan turned around to look at Matt and Rat.  
"Matt and Rat," said Dan, "I'm not going to write any more Matt and Rat material."  
"What?" complained Rat.  
"I have enjoyed writing El Goonish Shive," Dan continued, "but I don't want to continue Matt and Rat."  
"Hey!" Matt retorted. "What's wrong with Matt and Rat?"  
"Well, for one thing, you argue all the time, and I wouldn't want to write a story with such argumentative main characters," Dan began to say, but in the midst of saying so was interrupted by an argument.  
"This is all your fault for arguing with me!" Rat yelled at Matt.  
"Me?" responded Matt. "You're the one who always starts all the arguments!"  
"Am not!"  
"Am too!"  
During this argument, Elliot and Tedd reached Dan. They observed Matt and Rat's heated debating.  
"Dan," said Elliot, "you may notice we've gone back to the year 2000 instead of 2100."  
"Yes, I did notice that. It was pretty neat being 16 for a while but I'm ready to go to 2100 now. Are you?"  
"Yup!" nodded Tedd.  
"We think all you need to do is retroactively retract the fact that El Goonish Shive takes place between 2000 and 2099," explained Elliot.  
"I will do so," said Dan dramatically. "I, Dan Shive, the creator of El Goonish Shive, state that it takes place in 2XYZ, where X is a number, Y is another, potentially different, number, and Z is a third number, potentially different from one or more of the previous numbers! This is canon, so sayeth the Dan!"  
As Dan gave this dramatic speech, the air started getting all wiggly, which is not a normal thing, and probably indicates there's a time rift of some sort.  
"Oh no!" said Matt and Rat simultaneously, as they stopped their argument to realize what just happened. Then suddenly the air was not wiggly at all, and Dan, Elliot, and Tedd were the only people around Moperville North. Dan's backpack had disappeared too, and also Dan was 116.  
"Where did all the students go?" asked Elliot.  
"Look," said Tedd, pointing to a nearby wall calendar, because wall calendars still exist in the future, even though it's very unusual to put one on the outer wall of a school. "Today's Sunday, January 3rd, 2100!"  
"Neat!" said Elliot. "We found a way through a time rift of some sort!"  
"Yeah!" exclaimed Tedd, with a large grin.  
And everything was pretty cool and neat. The end.

Epilogue: Susan had actually worked on Susan and Elliot's day off, and neither of them had worked on Friday, January 1st, 2100.

**Author's Note:**

> [Susan has a widescreen TV and a combo DVD/VHS player!](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2003-06-13)  
> [Sarah has previously wasted the duck's distracting powers](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2010-05-03)  
> 16 is indeed my age at the time of writing. If you want to be even more accurate, try reading this on February 24th 2021, February 25th 2021, February 26th 2021, or February 27th 2121.  
> [Susan cleans the house](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2003-07-10)  
> ["Dude, where's my car?"](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2003-06-04)  
> [Sarah sleeps on Saturdays](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2003-08-20)  
> Are you wondering how messy Susan's house was? It was so messy that there was Tedd's piece of paper, and a used 1999 wall calendar, and probably more stuff! Susan had to recycle all of that!  
> There is in fact a library in Naperville, Illinois, USA.  
> [Susan reads books with blank covers on beanbag chairs](https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/2008-09-24)  
> [Matt and Rat](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2002-05-30)  
> [Phill from the gas station](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2002-08-19)  
> In addition to this being a family-friendly fanfiction, I just don't like curse words.  
> [So sayeth the Dan! (commentary)](https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2002-04-27#news)


End file.
